For this Thursday's reading (9/13/12), what stood out to me the most was the differences between Darwin in his Preface and Interlude, and his voice in the actual poem.
In the poem, while I still saw Darwin as a bit of a scientist (which probably resulted from his insistent use of Linnaean terms and details in his footnotes), he was much more fluid and relaxed in his language. Not only did his personification and metaphors overshadow the work as a whole, but it actually added to it in a way that scientists aren't always able to do - it made it more beautiful and less exact, prolonging the imagery of the poem and enhancing our perceptions on what he was seeing.
However, when it came to his Preface and Interlude, we easily see the scientist and the observer emerge much more prevalently. Not only can he not focus on anything but the Linnaean classification system in the Preface, but he refers to himself as "Mr. Botanist" before being labelled as "The Poet." The differences between the Preface and Interlude are great, one discussing just about nothing but the importance of proper classification and the other pointing out the fine details that can make art or poetry great, but we can't help but see the connection between the two in the form of his consistent and insistent use of references toward his botanist background, even when discussing the finer things in life.
I agree. From reading the poem itself and then comparing it to the preface and even the footnotes in the actual poem, it sounds like the entire work could have easily been written by two different people. I like how Darwin manages to be both very scientific and factual and amazingly artistic at the same time.
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